A Time of Breaking
by shadowfax994
Summary: Cissy felt that her whole self came from this. [BellatrixNarcissa]
1. Defiance

Cissy sat obediently on the wide front porch steps, picking idly at her shoe while her mother's shrieks filled the rain-soaked yard.

"Behave yourself Bella, we'll be late!"

She lunged for her daughter's mud-spattered sleeve and almost lost her balance, her soles squishing in the muck. The dark-haired girl danced easily out of reach, waggling her tongue at her mother and taking great care to soil her starched dress and polished shoes.

"_I'm_ _warning you Bellatrix!_"

Cissy looked up from her own scuffed heels to watch as her mother caught hold of Bella's flailing wrist and twisted, releasing it almost immediately with a gasp of pain. She screeched, nursing a burned palm, and for a moment Cissy wondered if she would turn her wand on her daughter; her eyes narrowed dangerously, and her upper lip curled in rage. Her words came in a voice deathly low, husky and breathless with stifled anger.

"I am going upstairs to get Andromeda and _so help you_ if you are not sitting right here when I get back." Cissy shuffled a little to the left as her mother whipped past her and stormed into the house.

Bella, observing her own position, plopped purposefully into a puddle and grinned wickedly.


	2. Storm

Cissy lay curled beneath the thick covers of her bed, nothing but the pale point of her nose poking out from under the protective blankets. Outside, a raging storm battered the house with roaring thunder and rain that beat the windowpanes like fists. The twisted tree outside her room thrashed in apparent agony, its long branches leaning into the house with a horrible groan.

She tensed and drew her knees tightly to her chin as a flash of lightening cast a sudden light through the window, throwing strange, shadowy shapes on the walls. She whimpered, but tossed the covers from her face almost defiantly, freezing in sudden terror when another flash illuminated a dark shape in the doorway.

"Cissy," the shape breathed into the shallow night.

It was Bella, clad in a nightgown that hung loosely from her shoulders and fanned behind her into the dark of the hallway. She looked thin and ghostly, crossing noiselessly to the side of the bed as though gliding.

Cissy did not inquire as to her presence – instead she allowed Bella to take her by the hand and pull her back in the direction of her own room. Her voice came to Cissy as though from far away. "Don't be scared. When you love the darkness, nothing can touch you."


	3. Flower

Cissy, sitting a little stiffly on the veranda, studied the fleshy petals of the white flower in her fingers, counting. One. Two. The colorless blossom seemed to weep as she gently mutilated it, plucking petal by petal. Three. Four.

She was not aware of Bella until her hand crept softly to the small of Cissy's back, her dark Bella breathing and her dark Bella smell hot and jasmine and wanting. Without her noticing, the evening had settled around Cissy like an early fall of snow. When Bella came to her, the dusk came to her, as though twilight shaded their secrets in its bosom.

Cissy liked Bella best when she was content, after she had had her fill of Cissy's lips and wrists and girlish body, after she had drunk deeply of her sister like a goblet of wine. Bella caressed her white blonde head in her lap and twirled the remains of the beautiful bloom, counting under her breath.

One. Two.


	4. Worship

Cissy felt a quiet pain reverberate in the hollow of her lonesome heart, her pearl-white fingers delicate against the skin of her sister's corpse. Bella, her ebony eyes closed contentedly, breathed haggardly against Cissy's wrist, a small smile glancing across her lips. But she is dead, Cissy thought to herself, her lily fingers knotted in Bella's hair. She stroked the gaunt cheekbones lovingly.

Azkaban had stolen from Cissy her own precious sanctuary, her sister's love. Prison had disfigured the Bella she knew almost beyond recognition, leaving behind a soulless, skeletal carcass that shrieked dark things into the night and bared its teeth hideously when Cissy pleased it with small kisses. The veined eyes glinted, and Cissy felt that her whole self came from this, a pivotal point in time and space that corkscrewed out from the center in a helix, tiny planets revolving a dead sun.

The leathery husk of Bella's body arced repulsively, beseeching, demanding, and Cissy obeyed. It seemed that she folded herself over and back, listening to her own distant whispers pleading in vain for her oldest sister to come home to her, and folded herself over and back, over and back.


End file.
